Overview

If you are confused and tired of being told lies and want to uncover the truth about the origins of existence, then it’s imperative to ask questions and seek information.

Join I. C. Smith as he examines how Satan stays involved in everyday affairs. Prayer has been taken out of schools, and a theory of evolution That eliminates the importance of God as it is being taught to our children. As a result, society continues its moral decay.

Yesterday: When the Beginning Began explores why evolution is the biggest hoax ever and how your community is being hurt by listening to lies from some politicians, school officials and others. You’ll learn which questions to ask about your own origins and how the answers can help you improve your life.

Do not accept the doctrine of evolution and think of life as a cosmic accident. Life has meaning, and it’s important to seek the truth and discover the true origins of life on earth. By looking back to yesterday and examining classic conflicts between science and religion, it’s possible to change your future.

Read an Excerpt

Yesterday

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

The Starting Line

When I was a young man being raised in the heartland of America, I had many thoughts about the origins of the world.

I was raised in the time when kids couldn't wait to go outside and play. That was before the computer age, before video games, back when television had only three channels, and at 1:00 a.m. the three networks would play the national anthem to signal the end of the broadcast day. It was before CDs and DVDs, before cell phones and crack. When nobody had air-conditioning, summer days and hot summer nights were endless, and we slept with the window open at night. Kool-aid was the drink of the summer.

Cereal boxes had that great prize in the bottom of the box, and popsicles had two sticks so you could break them in half and share with a friend. You could catch lightning bugs in a jar and have a best friend sleep over. Those were the days of pillow fights and laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. It was a time when any parent could discipline any child or use him to carry groceries, and nobody, not even the child, thought anything about it. You might be sent to the principal's office, but that was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you at home.

Back then, kids intermingled with each other on a regular basis, and the bond that was created during that time spent with friends and family and our friends' families proved to be a lifelong bond that was not easily broken, because of our struggles and the good times we shared growing up.

Back then, your friend's parents or a neighbor could tell you what to do, and if you didn't adhere to their instructions, they would tell your parents, and you could count on a good attitude adjustment when your parents came home. I'm not talking about a beating that would put a child in the hospital or cause lifelong injuries, but I'm talking about heating up a child's backside a few degrees, and it is amazing how much that can help a child change attitude and behavior in the right direction. You see, everybody looked out for each other back then, and children were reminded of their place in society. They were being taught the rules of life and society, which brought about a respect for authority and self-discipline.

After long and exhausting periods of playing and running I would lie on my back in the grass while taking a break. I would look up at the sky and see the different images in the clouds, and the sun was so bright and hot that I couldn't help but ask myself, where did this all come from?

At night after playing all day and before we had to go to bed for the night, I would see a lot of stars in the sky and different images like the Big Dipper. The moon appeared different to me night after night, and I couldn't help but wonder, where did this all come from? I attended church as a youth and I knew about God, but I never knew where he came from and why he made this big world.

Prayer was taken out of public schools in 1962, and I really missed that part of the school morning. I had been saying prayer every schoolday up until that point, and it really seemed like something was missing when prayer was not allowed anymore. I was too young to understand what had happened, and why, but it was something that I looked forward to every morning. Prayer seemed to keep the awareness of God in our thoughts throughout the course of the day.

The sixties brought about a change like this country has never seen before socially, morally, ethically, spiritually, politically, and culturally. The emphasis was put squarely on me. "If it feels good, do it." What matters is what's in it for me. I am at the center of my universe and the old ways of family, neighbors looking out for neighbors, and the neighborhood parents looking out for everybody gave way to views like "This is my life, and I'll live it any way I want. You tend to your business and stay out of mine." The author Dr. Spock wrote a book that said spanking your children would harm them for life. "I'm not going to whip my kids or discipline my kids, and you'd better not discipline them either" became the standard or the norm in child raising after that book came out.

Teachers could not discipline their students, and it seemed like it was an all-out assault on the teachers for trying to teach children to discern right from wrong and to instill discipline and self-control in students' lives.

Nobody was responsible anymore. If you went out and killed, stole, assaulted, or committed crimes against humanity, it was always somebody else's fault. The perpetrator seemed to always have issues with his family or society, and that was the excuse they used for having done these things. "My parents were not very good parents," or "my childhood was so different from all of my friends," or "it is not my fault that I grew up and became the person that I am; it is my parents' fault or it is society's fault, because every time I did something, I was punished for my deeds, so I rebelled against society, because life is so unfair to me," and the list goes on for not being responsible for their own actions.

Well I made it through the sixties, and the seventies were just an extension of the sixties. I went to the Army and did a tour in Vietnam, and upon my return to the United States, it seemed like the whole country had lost its identity. What's right for me may not be right for you. Absolute right and wrong was becoming a thing of the past. Everything was about me and I: "As an individual I must control my own destiny."

When I talked to people about Jesus Christ, there seemed to be a denial of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and this thought of evolution was becoming more and more widely accepted by younger people than the Bible and God's word. Soon I wanted to find out for myself what this evolution was all about, what was real and what was being perpetrated as a hoax.

When I read the Bible, God says that He is from everlasting to everlasting. In our finite minds that's hard to understand, and outside of the Holy Spirit it is impossible for natural man to understand the things of God, but if God's word is true, then the Bible, the origins of man, and the world would make a lot of sense. Life would have purpose, and a right understanding would elevate humanity past the accident it is today believed to be. God said that He made man in His own image; evolution says that we came from some primordial strata. So who is right and who is being misled?

Chapter Two

God the Father

I am going to give you the creation account that God said is the origins of the world. The creation event that God said is found in the book of Genesis 1st chapter. God told us in Genesis chapter one how he created the world, and the order he created it in.

Genesis 1 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. 6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. 9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. 14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. 20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. 24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Genesis 2 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

In order to understand the creation event more clearly, we have to understand a little bit about the creator. I say a little bit because we in our finite minds cannot understand fully who God is.

First of all, when I talk to people about the Bible, I hear a lot of people say that the Bible is written by man, and that is true, but not one word of the Bible was man's own interpretation.

2 Peter 1 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

For instance, Moses wrote the book of Genesis, but Moses was not present during the creation event, so how could he have known what happened? He wrote about things of which he had no personal knowledge, as did most of the prophets.

Moses could not have known about the creation of the world and the order of its events without the Holy Spirit telling him what to write. He wrote about Satan's deception of Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wrote about Cain killing his brother Abel and the reason he did so.

Moses wrote about the flood that killed all inhabitants of the earth except for eight: Noah and his wife, his three sons, and their wives were the only inhabitants that were saved from the flood. He wrote about how the ark was assembled by the direction of God and how all the animals, male and female, were placed in the ark by God's instruction.

Moses wrote about the rain that lasted forty days and forty nights and covered the whole earth, and how it reached a depth of twenty feet over the highest mountain on earth. He wrote about the time it took for the waters to recede and how Noah sent out a dove from the ark so he might know when the waters had receded enough for them to come out of the ark.

The only way Moses could have known this and described these events with such accuracy is through the Holy Spirit that was present during the creation event.

Knowledge of God

The opening verses of scripture begin with the affirmation not only of God's existence but also of God's unique action in speaking the universe into being out of nothing. At the heart of the biblical portrayal of God is that God alone is the personal Creator and Lord, and if He is to be known truly by His creatures, He must make Himself known to them.

No doubt His existence and power are disclosed in the created order, even though that order has been deeply scarred by human rebellion and its consequences. It is also true that a dim image of God's moral nature is reflected in the human conscience, even after the fall. But scripture is also very clear that apart from God's own gracious self-disclosure, both in word and action, we could not know Him in any true sense.

In truth, God is incomprehensible, one that we cannot totally fathom. But this in no way implies that we cannot know God truly. For in creating us in His image and giving us a Word, a revelation of Himself, even though we cannot know God fully, we may know Him truly. That is why any discussion of the Christian doctrine of God must be firmly rooted and grounded in scripture as God's written word. Human speculation about God is never adequate to lead us to the knowledge of God.

Nature of God

Scripture identifies and describes God in many ways, and our understanding of Him must be based in the total presentation of Himself in all the scripture. First, God is the "Lord" (Yahweh). Even though Yahweh is not the only name of God in scripture, it is uniquely the name by which God identifies Himself. He does this both at the beginning of His covenant with Israel and also as the name that has been given to Jesus Christ as the head of the new covenant.

Second, God is the "covenant" Lord. He is the God who not only spoke the universe into existence but who is also active in it. His action in the world is supremely seen in covenantal relations that find their climatic fulfillment in Jesus Christ the Lord. Therefore the expression "covenant Lord" adequately captures much of the biblical data regarding the identity of the God who creates, sustains, rules, and by grace redeems a people for Himself.

Three important summary statements can be highlighted from this overall presentation of the God of scripture. First, as the covenant Lord, God is both transcendent over and immanent in His world. God is presented as the Lord who is exalted above and over His world—that is, transcendent. Transcendence is not primarily a spatial concept; rather it speaks of God's distinction and separateness from His creation and His complete lordship over it. In biblical thought, God alone is the all-powerful Creator and Lord, and everything else is His creation. He alone is self-existent, self-sufficient, eternal, and in need of nothing outside of Himself. That's why the God of scripture is utterly unique and thus shares His glory with no created thing. Also, this is why God alone is to be worshiped, trusted, and obeyed. This presentation of God distinguishes Christian theism from all forms of dualism, pantheism, or polytheism.

First Chapter

Yesterday

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

The Starting Line

When I was a young man being raised in the heartland of America, I had many thoughts about the origins of the world.

I was raised in the time when kids couldn't wait to go outside and play. That was before the computer age, before video games, back when television had only three channels, and at 1:00 a.m. the three networks would play the national anthem to signal the end of the broadcast day. It was before CDs and DVDs, before cell phones and crack. When nobody had air-conditioning, summer days and hot summer nights were endless, and we slept with the window open at night. Kool-aid was the drink of the summer.

Cereal boxes had that great prize in the bottom of the box, and popsicles had two sticks so you could break them in half and share with a friend. You could catch lightning bugs in a jar and have a best friend sleep over. Those were the days of pillow fights and laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. It was a time when any parent could discipline any child or use him to carry groceries, and nobody, not even the child, thought anything about it. You might be sent to the principal's office, but that was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you at home.

Back then, kids intermingled with each other on a regular basis, and the bond that was created during that time spent with friends and family and our friends' families proved to be a lifelong bond that was not easily broken, because of our struggles and the good times we shared growing up.

Back then, your friend's parents or a neighbor could tell you what to do, and if you didn't adhere to their instructions, they would tell your parents, and you could count on a good attitude adjustment when your parents came home. I'm not talking about a beating that would put a child in the hospital or cause lifelong injuries, but I'm talking about heating up a child's backside a few degrees, and it is amazing how much that can help a child change attitude and behavior in the right direction. You see, everybody looked out for each other back then, and children were reminded of their place in society. They were being taught the rules of life and society, which brought about a respect for authority and self-discipline.

After long and exhausting periods of playing and running I would lie on my back in the grass while taking a break. I would look up at the sky and see the different images in the clouds, and the sun was so bright and hot that I couldn't help but ask myself, where did this all come from?

At night after playing all day and before we had to go to bed for the night, I would see a lot of stars in the sky and different images like the Big Dipper. The moon appeared different to me night after night, and I couldn't help but wonder, where did this all come from? I attended church as a youth and I knew about God, but I never knew where he came from and why he made this big world.

Prayer was taken out of public schools in 1962, and I really missed that part of the school morning. I had been saying prayer every schoolday up until that point, and it really seemed like something was missing when prayer was not allowed anymore. I was too young to understand what had happened, and why, but it was something that I looked forward to every morning. Prayer seemed to keep the awareness of God in our thoughts throughout the course of the day.

The sixties brought about a change like this country has never seen before socially, morally, ethically, spiritually, politically, and culturally. The emphasis was put squarely on me. "If it feels good, do it." What matters is what's in it for me. I am at the center of my universe and the old ways of family, neighbors looking out for neighbors, and the neighborhood parents looking out for everybody gave way to views like "This is my life, and I'll live it any way I want. You tend to your business and stay out of mine." The author Dr. Spock wrote a book that said spanking your children would harm them for life. "I'm not going to whip my kids or discipline my kids, and you'd better not discipline them either" became the standard or the norm in child raising after that book came out.

Teachers could not discipline their students, and it seemed like it was an all-out assault on the teachers for trying to teach children to discern right from wrong and to instill discipline and self-control in students' lives.

Nobody was responsible anymore. If you went out and killed, stole, assaulted, or committed crimes against humanity, it was always somebody else's fault. The perpetrator seemed to always have issues with his family or society, and that was the excuse they used for having done these things. "My parents were not very good parents," or "my childhood was so different from all of my friends," or "it is not my fault that I grew up and became the person that I am; it is my parents' fault or it is society's fault, because every time I did something, I was punished for my deeds, so I rebelled against society, because life is so unfair to me," and the list goes on for not being responsible for their own actions.

Well I made it through the sixties, and the seventies were just an extension of the sixties. I went to the Army and did a tour in Vietnam, and upon my return to the United States, it seemed like the whole country had lost its identity. What's right for me may not be right for you. Absolute right and wrong was becoming a thing of the past. Everything was about me and I: "As an individual I must control my own destiny."

When I talked to people about Jesus Christ, there seemed to be a denial of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and this thought of evolution was becoming more and more widely accepted by younger people than the Bible and God's word. Soon I wanted to find out for myself what this evolution was all about, what was real and what was being perpetrated as a hoax.

When I read the Bible, God says that He is from everlasting to everlasting. In our finite minds that's hard to understand, and outside of the Holy Spirit it is impossible for natural man to understand the things of God, but if God's word is true, then the Bible, the origins of man, and the world would make a lot of sense. Life would have purpose, and a right understanding would elevate humanity past the accident it is today believed to be. God said that He made man in His own image; evolution says that we came from some primordial strata. So who is right and who is being misled?

Chapter Two

God the Father

I am going to give you the creation account that God said is the origins of the world. The creation event that God said is found in the book of Genesis 1st chapter. God told us in Genesis chapter one how he created the world, and the order he created it in.

Genesis 1 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. 6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. 9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. 14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. 20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. 24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Genesis 2 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. 4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.

In order to understand the creation event more clearly, we have to understand a little bit about the creator. I say a little bit because we in our finite minds cannot understand fully who God is.

First of all, when I talk to people about the Bible, I hear a lot of people say that the Bible is written by man, and that is true, but not one word of the Bible was man's own interpretation.

2 Peter 1 20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

For instance, Moses wrote the book of Genesis, but Moses was not present during the creation event, so how could he have known what happened? He wrote about things of which he had no personal knowledge, as did most of the prophets.

Moses could not have known about the creation of the world and the order of its events without the Holy Spirit telling him what to write. He wrote about Satan's deception of Eve in the Garden of Eden. He wrote about Cain killing his brother Abel and the reason he did so.

Moses wrote about the flood that killed all inhabitants of the earth except for eight: Noah and his wife, his three sons, and their wives were the only inhabitants that were saved from the flood. He wrote about how the ark was assembled by the direction of God and how all the animals, male and female, were placed in the ark by God's instruction.

Moses wrote about the rain that lasted forty days and forty nights and covered the whole earth, and how it reached a depth of twenty feet over the highest mountain on earth. He wrote about the time it took for the waters to recede and how Noah sent out a dove from the ark so he might know when the waters had receded enough for them to come out of the ark.

The only way Moses could have known this and described these events with such accuracy is through the Holy Spirit that was present during the creation event.

Knowledge of God

The opening verses of scripture begin with the affirmation not only of God's existence but also of God's unique action in speaking the universe into being out of nothing. At the heart of the biblical portrayal of God is that God alone is the personal Creator and Lord, and if He is to be known truly by His creatures, He must make Himself known to them.

No doubt His existence and power are disclosed in the created order, even though that order has been deeply scarred by human rebellion and its consequences. It is also true that a dim image of God's moral nature is reflected in the human conscience, even after the fall. But scripture is also very clear that apart from God's own gracious self-disclosure, both in word and action, we could not know Him in any true sense.

In truth, God is incomprehensible, one that we cannot totally fathom. But this in no way implies that we cannot know God truly. For in creating us in His image and giving us a Word, a revelation of Himself, even though we cannot know God fully, we may know Him truly. That is why any discussion of the Christian doctrine of God must be firmly rooted and grounded in scripture as God's written word. Human speculation about God is never adequate to lead us to the knowledge of God.

Nature of God

Scripture identifies and describes God in many ways, and our understanding of Him must be based in the total presentation of Himself in all the scripture. First, God is the "Lord" (Yahweh). Even though Yahweh is not the only name of God in scripture, it is uniquely the name by which God identifies Himself. He does this both at the beginning of His covenant with Israel and also as the name that has been given to Jesus Christ as the head of the new covenant.

Second, God is the "covenant" Lord. He is the God who not only spoke the universe into existence but who is also active in it. His action in the world is supremely seen in covenantal relations that find their climatic fulfillment in Jesus Christ the Lord. Therefore the expression "covenant Lord" adequately captures much of the biblical data regarding the identity of the God who creates, sustains, rules, and by grace redeems a people for Himself.

Three important summary statements can be highlighted from this overall presentation of the God of scripture. First, as the covenant Lord, God is both transcendent over and immanent in His world. God is presented as the Lord who is exalted above and over His world—that is, transcendent. Transcendence is not primarily a spatial concept; rather it speaks of God's distinction and separateness from His creation and His complete lordship over it. In biblical thought, God alone is the all-powerful Creator and Lord, and everything else is His creation. He alone is self-existent, self-sufficient, eternal, and in need of nothing outside of Himself. That's why the God of scripture is utterly unique and thus shares His glory with no created thing. Also, this is why God alone is to be worshiped, trusted, and obeyed. This presentation of God distinguishes Christian theism from all forms of dualism, pantheism, or polytheism.